A lot vs. A Little
Is it better to have a teacher resource site that has a lot of information or one that has a little? This answer depends on how well the information provided on the site is organized. It is also important to have a specific idea of what you are looking for on a resource site before you start searching.
In the past week, I have looked at a few of these types of sites. For the sake of making this search specific, I choose to look for homework help on the math topic: two – step equations. The first, “Emerging Technologies” had an overwhelming number of links that were listed in alphabetical order. I clicked on Homework Help. From there was another long list of homework help web links. They were in alphabetical order again, but there were not many descriptions of the homework help you were going to before clicking on it. I randomly picked one of the links and ended up on a college level math help site. Unfortunately, this was not what I was looking for. I clicked back to the homework help and clicked on another link named “Math Goodies.” I felt the title would lead me to a more elementary/middle school level site. I was correct with my assumption. The second site was “Google for Educators.” Although, this site did not lead me to any homework help on two- step equations, it was well organized by subject and grade level. It listed eleven activities that were in the form of a pdf files and/or podcasts. The last educational resource website I went to “The Gateway to the 21st Century Skills” had many links to the different subjects and even provided how many lessons/activities were provided for each subject. Once you clicked on the subject, it listed all the lessons/activities by topic, gave a short description, a list of what tools the teacher would need, and a grade level for each activity. I was able to type in two-step equations into a search box and it led me to another website www.math.com. I really liked that this site broke down the math into four parts: Glance, In Depth, Examples, and Workout. The last part, Workout, allows a student to get tested on the material and the computer would grade it for them. Great idea, unfortunately, it didn’t work. While exploring this site, a few of the links were no longer available. This leads me to believe this site is not updated often.
The other types of educational resource websites that I looked at were the Florida Department of Education, the Minnesota Department of Education, and the Volusia County School District. Each of these three sites had highlighted stories on their home pages. Both the Florida and Volusia County sites had an inviting and “positive” story. While Minnesota’s site had a headliner reading, “The Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) Shows More Than Half of Minnesota’s Fourth-, Eighth-graders are Not Proficient in Science.” Although, I do feel it is important to inform the public about “negative” issues, I don’t think it should necessarily be their headliner. I feel the news media focuses enough on the aspects of education that are not working, that we as educators need to promote what is working. One link that I liked on Minnesota’s site was that it had a quick link to grant opportunities. It helps educators find a grant based on the subject they teach and the dates they would be requesting the grant. All three of these sites are well organized and had a lot of information for teachers, parents and students. One thing that stands out on the Volusia County website is that because it has so much information to choice from, it allows teachers to reorganize the homepage once they log onto the site to fit their personal needs.
Overall, I think there are a lot of resources out there for teachers. As a teacher, the most important thing I am looking for when I go to a resource is not the quantity of resources but the quality of the links that I am going to. Also, I would be more apt to go to a site which focuses on positive viewpoints that as an educator I can learn from.
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I agree that after all the searching I found a lot of broken links that did not support the activity they said they had. I think many websites fail to keep up-to-date and this leaves a lot of these dead links that are useless. I got really excited about something similar. I found a jeopardy long vowel game link for my Smartboard and it was no longer available. Very upsetting because I was expecting something great. What a let down!
ReplyDeleteI found your post interesting at first because of the question you posed, "Is it better to have a teacher resource site that has a lot of information or one that has a little?" I am also a math teacher (I teach all middle school math at a small private school) and believe that mathematics is one of the harder subjects to find valuable online resources for. My interest was peaked when you began discussing Math.com (http://www.math.com), only to reveal it is another sub-par resource.
ReplyDeleteThe good thing about a disappointing search session on the internet is that there is always more to look through at the next session. One thing I noticed most classmates seemed to have learned this week is that search can be easily affected by a few small tweaks, and the results we seek are out there. Your appreciation of "positivity" was not lost on me either, I could not agree with you more. That was my attempt at ending on a positive note!
Brad
Nothing is more annoying than expired links on an otherwise well executed site. As for the bad news in MN, perhaps their goal was to garner support for better public funding of education.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is better to have quality vs. quantity when talking about resource website for teachers. I feel that I have spent countless hours searching the internet for specific material that I wanted to use with class and would walk away from my computer with only the bare minimum I could find. It is nice to come across a website that have a lot of information that is organize well. I find it annoying when I find a website that appears to have a lot of what I may want but it is horribly organized and the search bar doesn't really help either. I like things to be at the tip of my fingers and unorganized websites make me feel as though I am driving all over town looking for the perfect item, it can be exhausting. I have several website in my "favorites" and use most of them, but favor the ones that are more organized, but I still feel the need to keep the ones that where I know exactly where what I want is, so I can just click and get it.
ReplyDeleteWhen commenting of the Gateway to the 21st Century skills site, you said, "While exploring this site, a few of the links were no longer available. This leads me to believe this site is not updated often."
ReplyDeleteI also found many dead links on this site. On the rare occasion when I found a live link, it was to ReadWriteThink.com. I had wondered if this was just the case on the Language Arts/English side of the site. Clearly, this is more widespread issue.
I find it ironic that a site dedicated to 21st Century Skills is neglecting one of the core ideals of continually updated and accurate information.
Also, you mentioned that in your search you stumbled across college math resources. I'm curious as to whether you found it difficult to find relevant math resources for middle school. I teach high school, and it seemed to me that many of the resources available out there are geared towards the elementary grades. I found quite a few lesson plans, but very few entertaining and enticing interactive multimedia.
Thanks for your post!
Kelley
Boy, there are so many websites for resources and you are right it is either a little or a lot. Some sites include ads and may not be best because of the advertisements. I would use TeacherTube as a resource to demonstrate a 2 step equation or www.mathtv.com. My students need to relate to the format that I have chosen. I like videos or math tutorials, the students can do a stop and go to slowly view the material in my computer lab. It also gets confusing when the sites sound so much alike. I use SO many that I cannot quote the actual site’s name unless I STOP and go to my flash drive and look them up. I find that you have to go deep in a website like Gateway to the 21 Century skills, to find good activities. Also there are some sites you have to pay for or lead to material that they want you to buy.
ReplyDeleteHaving a few good dependable sites and being organized is my vote. I like http://www.dadsworksheets.com/ for worksheets and it gives an answer page. Other websites for the students are; http://www.themathpage.com/arith/arithmetic.htm, this one is organized and has a lot of details, http://www.mathmastery.com/math.html has a interactive games.
There really is no end to what resources are out there.